A brand is a name, term, design, symbol or other feature that distinguishes one seller's product from those of others.[2] Brands are used in business, marketing, and advertising. Initially, livestock branding was adopted to differentiate one person's cattle from another's by means of a distinctive symbol burned into the animal's skin with a hot branding iron. A modern example of a brand is Pepsi which belongs to PepsiCo Inc,Gillete from P & G,etc.

In accounting, a brand defined as an intangible asset is often the most valuable asset on a corporation's balance sheet. Brand owners manage their brands carefully to create shareholder value, and brand valuation is an important management technique that ascribes a money value to a brand, and allows marketing investment to be managed (e.g.: prioritized across a portfolio of brands) to maximize shareholder value. Although only acquired brands appear on a company's balance sheet, the notion of putting a value on a brand forces marketing leaders to be focused on long term stewardship of the brand and managing for value.

The word "brand" is often used as a metonym referring to the company that is strongly identified with a brand.

The word "brand" derives from the Old Norse "brandr" meaning "to burn" - recalling the practice of producers burning their mark (or brand) onto their products.[3]

The oldest generic brand, in continuous use in India since the Vedic period (ca. 1100 B.C.E to 500 B.C.E), is the herbal paste known as Chyawanprash, consumed for its purported health benefits and attributed to a revered rishi (or seer) named Chyawan.[4] This product was developed at Dhosi Hill, an extinct volcano in northern India.

Roman glassmakers branded their works with Ennion being the most prominent.[5]

Although connected with the history of trademarks[7] and including earlier examples which could be deemed "protobrands" (such as the marketing puns of the "Vesuvinum" wine jars found at Pompeii),[8] brands in the field of mass-marketing originated in the 19th century with the advent of packaged goods. Industrialization moved the production of many household items, such as soap, from local communities to centralized factories. When shipping their items, the factories would literally brand their logo or insignia on the barrels used, extending the meaning of "brand" to that of a trademark.

Bass & Company, the Britishbrewery, claims their red-triangle brand as the world's first trademark. Tate & Lyle of Lyle's Golden Syrup makes a similar claim, having been recognized by Guinness World Records[9] as Britain's oldest brand, with its green-and-gold packaging having remained almost unchanged since 1885. Another example comes from Antiche Fornaci Giorgi in Italy, which has stamped or carved its bricks (as found in Saint Peter's Basilica in the Vatican City) with the same proto-logo since 1731.

Cattle-branding has been around for a long time. The term "maverick," originally meaning an un-branded calf, came from a Texas pioneer rancher, Sam Maverick, whose neglected cattle often got loose and were rounded up by his neighbors. Use of the word maverick spread among cowboys and came to apply to unbranded calves found wandering alone.[10]

Factories established during the Industrial Revolution introduced mass-produced goods and needed to sell their products to a wider market - to customers previously familiar only with locally produced goods. It quickly became apparent that a generic package of soap had difficulty competing with familiar, local products. The packaged-goods manufacturers needed to convince the market that the public could place just as much trust in the non-local product. Pears Soap, Campbell's soup, soft drink Coca-Cola, Juicy Fruit chewing gum, Aunt Jemima pancake mix, and Quaker Oats oatmeal were among the first products to be "branded" in an effort to increase the consumer's familiarity with their merits. Other brands which date from that era, such as Uncle Ben's rice and Kellogg's breakfast cereal, furnish illustrations of the trend.

Around 1900, James Walter Thompson published a house ad explaining trademark advertising. This was an early commercial explanation of what we now know as branding. Companies soon adopted slogans, mascots, and jingles that began to appear on radio and early television. By the 1940s,[11] manufacturers began to recognize the way in which consumers were developing relationships with their brands in a social/psychological/anthropological sense.

Manufacturers quickly learned to build their brands' identity and personality such as youthfulness, fun or luxury. This began the practice we now know as "branding" today, where the consumers buy "the brand" instead of the product. This trend continued to the 1980s, and is now quantified in concepts such as brand value and brand equity. Naomi Klein has described this development as "brand equity mania".[12] In 1988, for example, Philip Morris purchased Kraft for six times what the company was worth on paper; it was felt[by whom?] that what they really purchased was its brand name.

Effective branding can result in higher sales of not only one product, but of other products associated with that brand.[citation needed] Brand development takes time to produce and oftentimes handled by a design team. For example, if a customer loves Pillsbury biscuits and trusts the brand, he or she is more likely to try other products offered by the company - such as chocolate-chip cookies, for example. Brand is the personalitythat identifies a product, service or company (name, term, sign, symbol, or design, or combination of them) and how it relates to key constituencies: customers, staff, partners, investors etc.[citation needed]

Some people[who?] distinguish the psychological aspect (brand associations like thoughts, feelings, perceptions, images, experiences, beliefs, attitudes, and so on that become linked to the brand) of a brand from the experiential aspect. The experiential aspect consists of the sum of all points of contact with the brand and is known[by whom?] as the brand experience. The brand experience is a brand's action perceived by a person.[citation needed] The psychological aspect, sometimes referred to as the brand image, is a symbolic construct created within the minds of people, consisting of all the information and expectations associated with a product, service or the company(ies) providing them.[citation needed]

People engaged in branding seek to develop or align the expectations behind the brand experience, creating the impression that a brand associated with a product or service has certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand can therefore become one of the most valuable elements in an advertising theme, as it demonstrates what the brand owner is able to offer in the marketplace. The art of creating and maintaining a brand is called brand management. Orientation of an entire organization towards its brand is called brand orientation. Brand orientation develops in response to market intelligence.[citation needed]

Careful brand management seeks to make the product or services relevant to the target audience. Brands should be seen as more than the difference between the actual cost of a product and its selling price – they represent the sum of all valuable qualities of a product to the consumer.

A widely known brand is said to have "brand recognition". When brand recognition builds up to a point where a brand enjoys a critical mass of positive sentiment in the marketplace, it is said to have achieved brand franchise. Brand recognition is most successful when people can state a brand without being explicitly exposed to the company's name, but rather through visual signifiers like logos, slogans, and colors.[13] For example, Disney successfully branded its particular script font (originally created for Walt Disney's "signature" logo), which it used in the logo for go.com.

Consumers may look on branding as an aspect of products or services, as it often serves to denote a certain attractive quality or characteristic (see also brand promise). From the perspective of brand owners, branded products or services can command higher prices. Where two products resemble each other, but one of the products has no associated branding (such as a generic, store-branded product), people may often select the more expensive branded product on the basis of the perceived quality of the brand or on the basis of the reputation of the brand owner.

Brand awareness is a customers' ability to recall and recognize the brand, the logo and the advertisements. It helps the customers to understand to which product or service category the particular brand belongs and what products and services sell under the brand name. It also ensures that customers know which of their needs are satisfied by the brand through its products (Keller)[need quotation to verify]. Brand awareness is of critical importance in competitive situations, since customers will not consider a brand if they are not aware of it.[14]

Various levels of brand awareness require different levels and combinations of brand recognition and recall:

Most companies aim for "Top-of-Mind". Top-of-mind awareness occurs when a brand pops into a consumer's mind when asked to name brands in a product category. For example, when someone is asked to name a type of facial tissue, the common answer is "Kleenex", represents a top-of-mind brand.

Aided awareness occurs when consumers see or read a list of brands, and express familiarity with a particular brand only after they hear or see it as a type of memory aide.

Strategic awareness occurs when a brand is not only top-of-mind to consumers, but also has distinctive qualities which consumers perceive as making it better than other brands in the particular market. The distinction(s) that set a product apart from the competition is/are also known as the Unique Selling Point or USP.

Brand communication is important in ensuring brand success in the business world and refers to how a business transmits its brand message, characteristics and attributes to their consumers.[16] One method of brand communication, which can be exploited by companies, is electronic word of mouth (eWOM). EWoM is a relatively new approach identified to communicate with consumers, one popular method of eWOM is social networking sites (SNSs) e.g. twitter.[17] This study found that consumers classed their relationship with a brand as closer, if that brand was active on a social media site i.e. Twitter. It was further found that the more consumers 'retweeted' and communicated with a brand, the more they trusted the brand. Thus suggesting that a company should look to employ a social media campaign to gain consumer trust and loyalty as well as in the pursuit of communicating their brand message. McKee (2014) also looked into brand communication and stated that when communicating a brand, a company should look to simplify its message as this will lead to more value being portrayed as well as an increased chance of the brand being recalled and recognised by their target consumers.[18] When communicating a brand, In 2012, Riefler identified that, if the company in question, is a global organisation or have future global aims they should look to employ a method of communication which is globally appealing to their consumers and choose a method of communication with will be internationally understood.[19] One aspect a company can do this is when choosing a product or service's brand name, as this name will need to be suitable for the market place that it aims to enter.[20] It is important that if the company wishes to pursue global business, the company name chosen will need to be suitable in different cultures and not cause offensive or be misunderstood.[21] It has also been found that when communicating a brand a company needs to be aware that they must not just visually communicate their brand message and should take advantage of portraying their message through multi-sensory information.[22] Anon, (2007) suggests that other senses, apart from vision, need to be targeted when trying to communicate a brand with consumers.[23] For example, a jingle or background music can have a positive effect on brand recognition, purchasing behaviour and brand recall. Therefore, when looking to communicate a brand with chosen consumers, a company should investigate a channel of communication, which is most suitable for their short term and long term aims and should choose a method of communication which is most likely to be adhered to by their chosen consumers.[19]

The brand name is quite often used interchangeably with "brand", although it is more correctly used to specifically denote written or spoken linguistic elements of any product. In this context a "brand name" constitutes a type of trademark, if the brand name exclusively identifies the brand owner as the commercial source of products or services. A brand owner may seek to protect proprietary rights in relation to a brand name through trademark registration and such trademarks are called "Registered Trademarks". Advertising spokespersons have also become part of some brands, for example: Mr. Whipple of Charmin toilet tissue and Tony the Tiger of Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. Putting a value on a brand by brand valuation or using marketing mix modeling techniques is distinct to valuing a trade mark.

The act of associating a product or service with a brand has become part of pop culture. Most products have some kind of brand identity, from common table salt to designer jeans. A brandnomer is a brand name that has colloquially become a generic term for a product or service, such as Band-Aid, Nylon, or Kleenex—which are often used to describe any brand of adhesive bandage; any type of hosiery; or any brand of facial tissue respectively. Xerox, for example, has become synonymous with the word "copy".

The outward expression of a brand – including its name, trademark, communications, and visual appearance – is brand identity.[26] Because the identity is assembled by the brand owner, it reflects how the owner wants the consumer to perceive the brand – and by extension the branded company, organization, product or service. This is in contrast to the brand image, which is a customer's mental picture of a brand.[26] The brand owner will seek to bridge the gap between the brand image and the brand identity. Brand identity is fundamental to consumer recognition and symbolizes the brand's differentiation from competitors.

Brand identity is what the owner wants to communicate to its potential consumers. However, over time, a product's brand identity may acquire (evolve), gaining new attributes from consumer perspective but not necessarily from the marketing communications an owner percolates to targeted consumers. Therefore, businesses research consumer's brand associations.

The visual brand identity manual for Mobil Oil (developed by Chermayeff & Geismar), one of the first visual identities to integrate logotype, icon, alphabet, color palette, and station architecture.

A brand can also be used to attract customers by a company, if the brand of a company is well established and has goodwill. The recognition and perception of a brand is highly influenced by its visual presentation. A brand's visual identity is the overall look of its communications. Effective visual brand identity is achieved by the consistent use of particular visual elements to create distinction, such as specific fonts, colors, and graphic elements. At the core of every brand identity is a brand mark, or logo. In the United States, brand identity and logo design naturally grew out of the Modernist movement in the 1950s and greatly drew on the principles of that movement – simplicity (Mies van der Rohe's principle of "Less is more") and geometric abstraction. These principles can be observed in the work of the pioneers of the practice of visual brand identity design, such as Paul Rand, Chermayeff & Geismar and Saul Bass.

Color is a particularly important element of visual brand identity and color mapping provides an effective way of ensuring color contributes to differentiation in a visually cluttered marketplace (O'Connor, 2011).[27]

Brand trust is the intrinsic 'believability' that any entity evokes. In the commercial world, the intangible aspect of Brand trust impacts the behavior and performance of its business stakeholders in many intriguing ways. It creates the foundation of a strong brand connect with all stakeholders, converting simple awareness to strong commitment. This, in turn, metamorphoses normal people who have an indirect or direct stake in the organization into devoted ambassadors, leading to concomitant advantages like easier acceptability of brand extensions, perception of premium, and acceptance of temporary quality deficiencies.

The Brand Trust Report is a syndicated primary research that has elaborated on this metric of brand trust. It is a result of action, behavior, communication and attitude of an entity, with the most Trust results emerging from its action component. Action of the entity is most important in creating trust in all those audiences who directly engage with the brand, the primary experience carrying primary audiences. However, the tools of communications play a vital role in the transferring the trust experience to audiences which have never experienced the brand, the all important secondary audience.

Brand parity is the perception of the customers that some brands are equivalent.[28] This means that shoppers will purchase within a group of accepted brands rather than choosing one specific brand. When brand parity is present, quality is often not a major concern because consumers believe that only minor quality differences exist.

It was meant to make identifying and differentiating a product easier, while also providing the benefit of letting the name sell a second rate product. Over time, brands came to embrace a performance or benefit promise, for the product, certainly, but eventually also for the company behind the brand. Today, brand plays a much bigger role. Brands have been co-opted as powerful symbols in larger debates about economics, social issues, and politics. The power of brands to communicate a complex message quickly and with emotional impact and the ability of brands to attract media attention, make them ideal tools in the hands of activists.[29] Cultural conflict over a brand's meaning have also been shown to influence the diffusion of an innovation.[30]

Often, especially in the industrial sector, it is just the company's name which is promoted (leading to[citation needed] one of the most powerful statements of branding: saying just before the company's downgrading. This approach has not worked as well for General Motors, which recently overhauled how its corporate brand relates to the product brands.[31] Exactly how the company name relates to product and services names is known as brand architecture. Decisions about company names and product names and their relationship depends on more than a dozen strategic considerations.[32]

In this case a strong brand name (or company name) is made the vehicle for a range of products (for example, Mercedes-Benz or Black & Decker) or a range of subsidiary brands (such as Cadbury Dairy Milk, Cadbury Flake or Cadbury Fingers in the UK).

Each brand has a separate name (such as Seven-Up, Kool-Aid or Nivea Sun (Beiersdorf)), which may compete against other brands from the same company (for example, Persil, Omo, Surf and Lynx are all owned by Unilever).

A great brand raises the bar – it adds a greater sense of purpose to the experience, whether it's the challenge to do your best in sports and fitness, or the affirmation that the cup of coffee you're drinking really matters. – Howard Schultz (president, CEO, and chairman of Starbucks)

Iconic brands are defined as having aspects that contribute to consumer's self-expression and personal identity. Brands whose value to consumers comes primarily from having identity value are said to be "identity brands". Some of these brands have such a strong identity that they become more or less cultural icons which makes them "iconic brands". Examples are: Apple, Nike and Harley Davidson. Many iconic brands include almost ritual-like behaviour in purchasing or consuming the products.

There are four key elements to creating iconic brands (Holt 2004):

"Necessary conditions" – The performance of the product must at least be acceptable, preferably with a reputation of having good quality.

"Myth-making" – A meaningful storytelling fabricated by cultural insiders. These must be seen as legitimate and respected by consumers for stories to be accepted.

"Cultural contradictions" – Some kind of mismatch between prevailing ideology and emergent undercurrents in society. In other words, a difference with the way consumers are and how they wish they were.

"The cultural brand management process" – Actively engaging in the myth-making process in making sure the brand maintains its position as an icon.

Recently a number of companies have successfully pursued "no-brand" strategies by creating packaging that imitates generic brand simplicity. Examples include the Japanese company Muji, which means "No label" in English (from 無印良品 – "Mujirushi Ryohin" – literally, "No brand quality goods"), and the Florida company No-Ad Sunscreen. Although there is a distinct Muji brand, Muji products are not branded. This no-brand strategy means that little is spent on advertisement or classical marketing and Muji's success is attributed to the word-of-mouth, a simple shopping experience and the anti-brand movement.[33][34][35] "No brand" branding may be construed as a type of branding as the product is made conspicuous through the absence of a brand name. "Tapa Amarilla" or "Yellow Cap" in Venezuela during the 1980s is another good example of no-brand strategy. It was simply recognized by the color of the cap of this cleaning products company.

In this case the supplier of a key component, used by a number of suppliers of the end-product, may wish to guarantee its own position by promoting that component as a brand in its own right. The most frequently quoted example is Intel, which positions itself in the PC market with the slogan (and sticker) "Intel Inside".

The existing strong brand name can be used as a vehicle for new or modified products; for example, many fashion and designer companies extended brands into fragrances, shoes and accessories, home textile, home decor, luggage, (sun-) glasses, furniture, hotels, etc.

Mars extended its brand to ice cream, Caterpillar to shoes and watches, Michelin to a restaurant guide, Adidas and Puma to personal hygiene. Dunlop extended its brand from tires to other rubber products such as shoes, golf balls, tennis racquets and adhesives. Frequently, the product is no different from what else is on the market, except a brand name marking. Brand is Product identity.

There is a difference between brand extension and line extension. A line extension is when a current brand name is used to enter a new market segment in the existing product class, with new varieties or flavors or sizes. When Coca-Cola launched "Diet Coke" and "Cherry Coke" they stayed within the originating product category: non-alcoholic carbonated beverages. Procter & Gamble (P&G) did likewise extending its strong lines (such as Fairy Soap) into neighboring products (Fairy Liquid and Fairy Automatic) within the same category, dish washing detergents.

The risk of over-extension is brand dilution where the brand loses its brand associations with a market segment, product area, or quality, price or cachet.[citation needed]

In 'The Better Mousetrap: Brand Invention in a Media Democracy' (2012) author and brand strategist Simon Pont posits that social media brands may be the most evolved version of the brand form, because they focus not on themselves but on their users. In so doing, social media brands are arguably more charismatic, in that consumers are compelled to spend time with them, because the time spent is in the meeting of fundamental human drivers related to belonging and individualism. "We wear our physical brands like badges, to help define us – but we use our digital brands to help express who we are. They allow us to be, to hold a mirror up to ourselves, and it is clear. We like what we see." [36]

Alternatively, in a market that is fragmented amongst a number of brands a supplier can choose deliberately to launch totally new brands in apparent competition with its own existing strong brand (and often with identical product characteristics); simply to soak up some of the share of the market which will in any case go to minor brands. The rationale is that having 3 out of 12 brands in such a market will give a greater overall share than having 1 out of 10 (even if much of the share of these new brands is taken from the existing one). In its most extreme manifestation, a supplier pioneering a new market which it believes will be particularly attractive may choose immediately to launch a second brand in competition with its first, in order to pre-empt others entering the market. This strategy is widely known as multi-brand strategy.

Individual brand names naturally allow greater flexibility by permitting a variety of different products, of differing quality, to be sold without confusing the consumer's perception of what business the company is in or diluting higher quality products.

Once again, Procter & Gamble is a leading exponent of this philosophy, running as many as ten detergent brands in the US market. This also increases the total number of "facings" it receives on supermarket shelves. Sara Lee, on the other hand, uses it to keep the very different parts of the business separate — from Sara Lee cakes through Kiwi polishes to L'Eggs pantyhose. In the hotel business, Marriott uses the name Fairfield Inns for its budget chain (and Choice Hotels uses Rodeway for its own cheaper hotels).

Cannibalization is a particular problem of a multi-brand strategy approach, in which the new brand takes business away from an established one which the organization also owns. This may be acceptable (indeed to be expected) if there is a net gain overall. Alternatively, it may be the price the organization is willing to pay for shifting its position in the market; the new product being one stage in this process.

Private label brands, also called own brands, or store brands have become popular. Where the retailer has a particularly strong identity (such as Marks & Spencer in the UK clothing sector) this "own brand" may be able to compete against even the strongest brand leaders, and may outperform those products that are not otherwise strongly branded.

With the development of brand, it has been widely used, no longer limited to a product or service.[37] There are kinds of branding that treat individuals and organizations as the products to be branded.

The business world is not just focused on product and service branding it also personal branding. The concept personal branding was first published in about 1835, and started to gain attention till 1920s, but not since 21st century people began to pay great attention to it.[38] Personal branding is a consistent message, which aims to show an individual's professional value and self-advantage, and will help the individuals to distinguish themselves from their competitors and hold an advantage position in the market competition. And the most common way of personal branding is via blogs and social media.[37]

Not only employees can benefit from personal branding but also employers. An executive with a successful personal branding can help the organization to attract more talent and enhance the relationships with consumers and business partners.[37]

However, in this information age, technology, especially social platforms, makes it easy to build a successful personal brand. It also makes it easy for people to show their unprofessional side to publics. Thus, it is crucial for those who want to build their personal brand to carefully manage their online information.[37]

Employer branding is a relatively new term used in the business world. The concept of employer branding was proposed on mid-1800s, and received increasing attention since the beginning of 21st century. Employer branding is the organization's positioning on human resource market, includes corporate personality, loyalty, identification and popularity. A good employer brand can help the company to stand out from the HRM, and gain social acceptance. Employer branding can be divided into external employer branding and internal employer branding. And employer brand, as well as product brand and service brand, is a part of enterprise brand.[39]

External employer branding aims to raise the company's reputation in order to attract and keep employees. Internal employment branding refers to the promises that the organisation make to their employees to maintain relationships. In the modern business world, organisations should think of their employees as customers, and convince them to buy into the company's vision, corporate goals and brand.[40]

There are several theories can be used to help organizations to build their employer branding. For instance, social exchange theory, psychological contract and brand personality theory.[41][42]

Take Google for example. Google described itself as "being a good friend" and make promises about fulfilling work and a supportive workplace in its self-presentation for jobs. And the top 10 reasons to work at Google include: Lend a helping hand, Google become a part of your everyday life like a good friend to help you live better. Life is beautiful, work on something that really matters and feel fulfilling with Google. Work and play are not mutually exclusive, you have to have fun and work at the same time when you work in Google.[43]

Therefore, organisations should think employers as essentially customers, and convince them to buy the company's employer's vision and corporate goals and brand or the cultural, rather than producers of HR practices or corporate brand.

Nation branding is a field of theory and practice which aims to measure, build and manage the reputation of countries (closely related to place branding). Some approaches applied, such as an increasing importance on the symbolic value of products, have led countries to emphasise their distinctive characteristics. The branding and image of a nation-state "and the successful transference of this image to its exports – is just as important as what they actually produce and sell."

Destination branding is the work of cities, states, and other localities to promote to themselves. This work is designed to promote the location to tourists and drive additional revenues into a tax base. These activities are often undertaken by governments, but can also result from the work of community associations. The Destination Marketing Association International is the industry leading organization.